Lewis and Clark

views updated

Lewis and Clark

Meriwether Lewis
Born August 18, 1774 (Albemarle County, Virginia)
Died October 11, 1809 (Nashville, Tennessee)

William Clark
Born August 1, 1770 (Caroline County, Virginia)
Died September 1, 1838 (St. Louis, Missouri)

Explorers, governors

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark are two of the most celebrated heroes in American history for leading an extraordinary expedition. With some for tycrewmembers, known as the Corps of Discovery, they journeyed by boat, canoe, horseback, and foot for three years in uncharted territory from St. Louis, Missouri, to the Pacific Northwest coast and back. President Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826; served 1801–9; see entry in volume 1) sent them to explore and map the new American lands, find a route to the Pacific Ocean, establish an American presence in the Pacific Northwest, make friends with Native Americans, and see to what extent European influence already existed, if any.

"[At] a village of 7 houses . . . we found the Chief we had Seen at the long narrows ...we entered his lodge and he gave us to eate Pounded fish, bread made of roots, Filbert nuts, & the berries ...we gave to each woman of the lodge a brace of Ribon of which they were much pleased."

From William Clark's journal

Lewis and Clark shared leadership responsibilities on the expedition and worked so close in harmony that history almost considers them one. They combined their skills, frontier experience, and resourcefulness to accomplish their large and dangerous task. Lewis was the more intellectual man, while Clark possessed greater wilderness and leadership skills. They encountered some thirty Native American tribes, many of whom had never seen a white person. They produced a journal of historic importance that recorded natural and cultural conditions in the West at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Their trek represented the beginning of the great westward expansion of the United States that peaked in the mid-nineteenth century.

Lewis and his love of the wilderness

Meriwether Lewis was born in rural Albemarle County, Virginia, in August 1774, on the eve of the American Revolution(1775–83). Lewis was the oldest child of William Lewis and Lucy Meriwether, both from influential families of wealth. His great-grandfather arrived in Virginia in 1638 with a large land grant—over 33,000 acres—from the king of England. Lewis's father, William, later inherited almost 2,000 acres with slaves and a house. William served as an officer in the Continental Army during the war and died in 1779 when Lewis was just five years old.

Lewis's mother remarried John Marks, and when Lewis was ten years old, the family moved with other relatives to rural northern Georgia. There they lived on several plantations on the Broad River in Oglethorpe County. Lewis grew up exploring the woods around the plantation and becoming an expert hunter. He learned wilderness skills while living in an upper-class plantation society. Lewis developed a scientific interest in the plants and animals of the area. His mother became an expert in herbal medicines, and others from around the region frequently sought her advice. Lewis learned much about native plants from her.

Educational opportunities were few in rural Georgia, so at age thirteen Lewis returned to Virginia to be privately tutored for the next five years. He studied various subjects including mathematics, science, and Latin. He also enjoyed reading the journals of British explorer Captain James Cook (1728–1779), who sailed to exotic places in the Pacific Ocean and encountered natives across the region. At age eighteen, Lewis was ready to enter the College of William and Mary in Virginia. However, his stepfather died, and his mother returned from Georgia to live on the "Locust Hill" plantation near Charlottesville, Virginia. Being the oldest son of the family, Lewis felt obligated to forgo his plans for college and help manage the plantation. The home of Thomas Jefferson, future president of the United States, was nearby. They became good friends as well as neighbors.

Lewis as soldier and presidential confidante

In 1794, Lewis joined the Virginia militia as a private and was among the troops sent to western Pennsylvania to quell the Whiskey Rebellion, a revolt by farmers in protest of high taxes on the whiskey they produced from their corn crops. Lewis quickly found a soldier's life to his liking, and he joined the U.S. Army in May 1795. Lewis was sent to the Ohio River valley as part of the force commanded by General Anthony Wayne (1745–1796; see entry in volume 2) to end Native American resistance to expanding white settlement. He served under William Clark in a special company of sharpshooters. By 1799, Lewis rose in rank to lieutenant and then became a captain in 1800. While stationed at various posts west of the Appalachian Mountains, Lewis learned about Native American culture.

In 1800, shortly after Lewis was transferred to the post at Detroit under the command of General James Wilkinson (1757–1825), Thomas Jefferson was elected president. Jefferson was a widower, and his daughters, who were married, would be at the president's mansion only on limited occasions. So immediately after his election, Jefferson wrote to Lewis, offering him a position as his private secretary. Jefferson was not only familiar with Lewis's intellectual abilities, but his wilderness skills and familiarity with Native Americans as well. They also had shared through the years an interest in western exploration. Jefferson was eager to have Lewis's knowledge of the West and the military close at hand. Lewis immediately accepted the position and went to live in the President's House. He was in charge of the operation of the mansion and the eleven slaves brought by Jefferson from his Monticello plantation. Jefferson entertained endlessly, and Lewis overheard discussions on all matters by the world's leaders.

The topic of westward exploration had long been of keen interest to Jefferson, and on occasion it surfaced in his discussions with Lewis. Lewis had for years expressed interest in participating in such an adventure. As early as 1792, Lewis had asked Jefferson, who was secretary of state at the time, about the prospects of conducting an exploration of the Far West.

In early 1803, President Jefferson finally decided it was time. On January 18, he sent a secret note to Congress, requesting funds to pursue exploration of the West. Secrecy was necessary at the time because the land to be explored was not part of the United States but Jefferson was interested in possible future expansion and acquisition of the territory. Congress responded with $2,500. Of course, Jefferson asked Lewis to lead the expedition. Lewis already had many of the skills he would need for the journey. Jefferson sent him to the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia to gain other skills that would be necessary. There, Lewis learned about biology (the study of living organisms), botany (the study of plants), and paleontology (the study of fossils) from the nation's leading scientists. He learned how to make scientific observations and use astronomical instruments to plot locations and directions. He then traveled to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where surveyor Andrew Ellicott (1754–1820) taught him mapmaking.

On June 30, Jefferson sent Lewis detailed instructions for the expedition along with passports to travel through French-controlled territory west of the Mississippi River. Lewis's tasks were many: to determine if a large river existed that could provide a means for commerce to the Pacific Coast from the interior; to make contacts and friends with Native American tribes; to collect samples and make scientific observations of wildlife, plants, and geography; and to determine what Spanish presence might be in the region. Jefferson asked Lewis to select a companion officer. Lewis's choice was William Clark, his former commander in the U.S. Army.

About the time the expedition was to begin, stunning news arrived from Europe. U.S. diplomat James Monroe (1758–1831; see entry in volume 2) and others had negotiated the $15 million purchase of a vast area east of the Mississippi River—800,000 square miles stretching from the mouth of the Mississippi at New Orleans all the way to Canada and west to the Rocky Mountains. Now much of the territory that Lewis would explore was part of the United States.

The Clark family in the military

William Clark was born in August 1770 in rural Virginia, the ninth child of John and Ann Rogers Clark. The Clarks were planters and slave owners, farming many acres. Clark enjoyed exploring the wilderness around his home and received little formal education. He learned the basic skills of the frontier, including horseback riding, hunting, and land surveying.

During the American Revolution, William's older brother, George Rogers Clark (1752–1818), became a national hero. He had much military success in the West, protecting settlements from attacks by Native Americans who had allied with the British against the United States. He rose in rank to general. After the war, in the autumn of 1784, the Clark family moved to Kentucky to join George, who remained stationed there. They built a new home called Mulberry Hill.

In 1785, Congress commissioned George to negotiate treaties with the Native Americans of the Ohio River valley to open up the new Northwest Territory to American settlement. However, hostilities mounted as tribes continued to resist the spread of settlements into their traditional territories, and George ended up leading an expedition against Native American forces on the Wabash River in Indiana in 1786. Hostilities continued to grow. William joined the militia three years later in 1789 when they went back to the White River area near the Wabash. Through the winter months of 1789–90, William helped defend the Kentucky settlements from occasional Native American assaults and joined another militia expedition in the early summer of 1791.

Following the disastrous defeat of General Arthur St. Clair's (1735–1818) force by the Native American alliance later in 1791, Clark joined the regular army. He received a commission of lieutenant on March 7, 1792, and served for the next four years under General Anthony Wayne. He became commander of a sharpshooting rifle corps in September 1793. In August 1794, Clark's rifle corps took part in the Battle of Fallen Timbers, where the Native American alliance suffered a crushing defeat. Meriwether Lewis had joined Clark's company by that time. During this four-year period of Clark's military career, Clark was also sent on assignments to meet with Spanish officials on the lower Mississippi River to resolve territorial disputes.

By the summer of 1796, Clark was ready to return home to help with the plantation at Mulberry Hill. He resigned his commission in July. Clark worked the plantation and traveled around the country over the next several years, often related to settling his brother's war debts that the government refused to pay. It was not uncommon for Revolutionary War leaders to finance their own expenses in military campaigns and hope for repayment following the war. However, Clark was unsuccessful in getting full repayment from both the state of Virginia and U.S. Congress for his brother's debts. When both of his parents died in 1799, Clark inherited the family home. He fought hard to save their property from creditors.

In 1803, Clark received Lewis's invitation to help command an expedition to the West. Clark eagerly accepted. Though the army failed to raise Clark's rank to captain, Lewis, who had that rank, would always treat Clark as an equal and call him captain.

Corps of Discovery

Later in 1803, Lewis and Clark journeyed west toward the Mississippi River. Along the way, they recruited their crew. They established camp on the Mississippi not far from the mouth of the Missouri River. Much of the crew was recruited from southwestern Illinois, near St. Louis. Throughout the winter of 1803–4, Lewis and Clark drilled the expedition recruits in military fashion and gathered supplies and equipment in preparation for their launch the following spring. For food, they carried pork, flour, salt, and biscuits. They would add wild game and fish as they traveled.

In the spring of 1804, Lewis was taking part in official ceremonies transferring the Louisiana Purchase to U.S. ownership; this was part of his job as Jefferson's private secretary. Clark and the Corps of Discovery departed on May 14, traveling in three boats up the Missouri River. Lewis caught up at St. Charles, Missouri. They spent the summer working their way up the Missouri River before selecting their wintering spot on the upper Missouri. They built Fort Mand annear present-day Bismarck, North Dakota, among the Mandan Sioux tribe. There, they recruited the young Native American woman Sacagawea (c.1786–1812; see entry in volume 2) and her husband, French Canadian trapper Toussaint Charbonneau (1758–1843). Sacagawea and Charbonneau would serve as guides and interpreters for the journey over the mountains. Their infant son, whom Lewis helped deliver in February, would accompany the expedition.

Lewis and Clark's Slave, York

Until the late twentieth century, few people were aware that the Lewis and Clark expedition included a black slave. Rarely mentioned in the journals kept on the journey, York was a slave brought along by William Clark. York was about the same age as Clark and grew up with him in the woods of Kentucky on the Clark farm. What is remarkable is that York shared much the same privileges on the expedition as the other members, even voting on different issues as they arose. While on the journey York shared in everyday duties and even risked his life in attempting to rescue Clark when he was caught in a flash flood in Montana.

The Native Americans along the route had never seen a black man. They were in great awe of York, who was large, very muscular, and athletic. Full of curiosity, some Native Americans even tried rubbing York's black skin with sand or dirt to remove the color. Native American children regularly followed York, fascinated by his appearance. As a participant in the expedition, York was the first black American to cross the North American continent.

Yet after living for three years as a free man on the expedition, York was forced to return to a life of slavery upon the crew's return to St. Louis in September 1806. He begged Clark for his freedom, but Clark refused. York also wanted to be closer to his wife, who worked near Louisville, Kentucky; Clark refused that, too. Finally, Clark relented and sent York to Kentucky and later gave him his freedom. It is reported that York later worked hauling freight in Kentucky and Tennessee and died sometime before 1832.

In 1805, the expedition journeyed up the Missouri River to its source and then across the Rocky Mountains and down the Snake and Columbia Rivers to the coast, where they arrived on November 8, 1805. They established Fort Clatsop near Astoria, Oregon, for the winter of 1805–6. After experiencing a rainy winter, they returned on roughly the same course, arriving in St. Louis on September 23, 1806. By then, Jefferson and the public had thought the expedition was lost and not returning.

The expedition was successful in achieving the goals set out by President Jefferson. Simply surviving the journey was a success in itself. It took great daring and skill to complete the trip, and crew members often had to improvise, whether dealing with Native American encounters or building canoes for the trip on the west side of the Rocky Mountains. The expedition lost only one crew member, who died of appendicitis at the beginning of the journey, and had only one violent skirmish with a Native American group, which occurred on the way back; in the skirmish, two members of the Blackfoot tribe were killed, and Lewis had a near miss with a musket ball. Not long after this incident, Lewis was mistaken for a deer by one of the crew members and wounded. Though his condition was poor, he made a quick recovery on the remainder of the journey.

Lewis and Clark kept detailed journals and maps, recording various observations and locations on a daily basis. Clark was the primary mapmaker and sketch artist, drawing in detail many of the new kinds of animals they observed. Other crew members also kept diaries. Lewis showed greater interest in his scientific observations and human encounters. Upon their return, Lewis and Clark immediately began working on their journals and materials, with plans of publishing an account of their adventures very soon.

Lewis and Clark journeyed to Washington, D.C., in November 1806 and received a hero's welcome. They each received 1,600 acres of public land and double their salary for the time they were gone. The other crew members received 320 acres and double pay.

New government assignments

On February 28, 1807, Lewis resigned his army commission to accept Jefferson's appointment as governor of Louisiana Territory, later to become the Missouri Territory. The territory included all land in the Louisiana Purchase deal north of the present-day state of Louisiana. Clark had resigned the previous day, February 27, to accept an appointment as superintendent of Indian affairs and brigadier general of the Louisiana Territory militia. Lewis and Clark would both be stationed in St. Louis.

In the summer of 1807, Lewis unsuccessfully tried to finish editing his journals before returning to his new post in St. Louis. He found great turmoil in the wild frontier town of St. Louis: American settlers were moving in, strong competition raged between British and American fur trappers, and Native Americans in the region were resisting the Americans' forced entrance onto their homelands. Lewis did well as he organized a militia, adopted new territorial laws, and assisted Clark in resolving Native American issues in the territory. In January 1808, Clark married Julia Hancock of Virginia; they would have four children, including a son they would name Meriwether Lewis Clark.

In the summer of 1809, Lewis became greatly frustrated with Congress for its failure to provide funds to cover his expenses. In September, Lewis decided to go to Washington, D.C., to resolve the administrative problems. He was to travel with two servants down the Mississippi River to New Orleans and then board a ship to Washington, D.C. However, Lewis became ill with fever along the way, and in the present-day Memphis area he changed his plans. He decided to follow the Natchez Trace (a trail extending from Natchez, Mississippi, to Nashville, Tennessee), across the Appalachians, and into the east. On the night of October 11, he stopped at a rural inn near Nashville. That night, Lewis died of two gunshots. Some think Lewis committed suicide (with the first shot missing its mark). Others believe he was murdered. At the time, the route saw much crime, including robberies and murders. No money was found on Lewis, and his watch was later discovered in New Orleans. He was buried at the location without a gravestone. In 1848, the state of Tennessee erected a monument on the grave. Later, Congress designated the gravesite a national monument.

Clark becomes governor

Jefferson appointed Clark to take Lewis's place as governor of the Louisiana Territory, but Clark at first declined in honor of his friend. In 1813, Clark was appointed as the territorial governor (by that time, the area was known as the Missouri Territory) and served in that position until 1821. With the start of the War of 1812 (1812–15), Clark became busy protecting settlements in the Missouri Territory from attacks by Native Americans who received support from the British. This included leading an expedition of two hundred up the Mississippi River. They established a log fort known as Fort Shelby at the mouth of the Wisconsin River. It was the first American settlement in the future state of Wisconsin.

After the war ended, Clark was responsible for establishing treaties with the Native Americans in the regions that had warred against the United States. Native American relations occupied much of his time for the next several years, both through treaty negotiations and skirmishes.

Clark's later life

Clark's wife, Julia, died in 1820; the following year, he married her cousin, Harriet Kennerly, who was a widow. They had a son named Jefferson Clark. Clark remained in the post of Indian superintendent for the rest of his life. He was considered for governor of the new state of Missouri in 1821 but was not elected. He then served as surveyor general for Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas in 1824 and 1825. In 1828, he laid out the town of Paducah, Kentucky. Clark died in September 1838.

Lewis and Clark's journal of the expedition, edited by Nicholas Biddle (1786–1844), was first published in 1814, with subsequent editions appearing over the next two centuries. In the twenty-first century, Lewis and Clark still inspire considerable public attention through film documentaries, books, and tourism. Many Americans look to relive the experience of the Corps of Discovery by reading their journals and retracing their route.